


Quiver

by Kasan_Soulblade



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman Year One
Genre: AU, F/M, Harleen's fall, Horror, Romance, set in a verse that borrows from the Nolan worlds and the comics, slow build romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-30
Updated: 2014-10-12
Packaged: 2017-12-25 02:16:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 13,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/947419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasan_Soulblade/pseuds/Kasan_Soulblade
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The heart was a curious thing, frantic, frenetic, stationary but with enough give to pound. a furious staccato against the ribs that held it back.  He likened it to the failed flight of a bird, the impact was less spectacular, but the results were ever the same.  Simply more... protracted.</p><p>And in his cage of monochrome he thought of color, and in the blankness he filled with notes and refrains that spoke of worlds all trapped in one word, he indulged, secure in the sincere belief none would hear the flutter of wings, figure the slant of writing that wasn't there.</p><p>Then she came, and it all fell apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Good Doctor Crane

**Author's Note:**

> The ranking of this fic may change, I was in the mood for some batman themed darkness in preparation of all hollow's eve and though very early the mood struck me so I indulged it and a favorite "what if pairing" though it's a slow build tale.

Quiver

Chapter 1/intro

The Good Doctor Crane

 

It was like a bird’s dying.  That last shuddering shiver, when the heart sought freedom and the body met cage and that inevitable impact occurred.

But after, it was the grisly matter of after that held him so enraptured.

Such was fear’s allure.

Those were the words he’d used.  Time and time again.  They’d trooped doctors at him, the rotation of personnel was at best impersonal, a blinding kaleidoscope of white coats and trivial lives and boring features.  None were as important as they pretended to be, their over inflated confidence usually collapsed upon his revealing that which they most reviled.  Fear of failure, fear of being alone, fear so banal and boring but so easy to exploit.

They normally left in tears, he’d made a secret wager with himself, no rewards save satisfaction, of how many days doctor number eight would last.  Four days, he’ been right, and the silence that had followed (his punishment, solitary confinement) thereafter had been divine.

 The walls were white, and bare, and boring, but only to those of little minds,  For him it served as white board, save he was without marker to make his notes, so he left his calculations upon the contorted expanse of his mind and felt the information quite secure.

Still the lack of furniture rankled.  He’d of favored sprawling upon the crooks of a curiously made chair when the opportunity presented itself, such was his lanky frame that the uncomfortable could be made so via a little contortion but all they’d left him here was a glorified blow up bean bag.

The cricks in his neck were obscene, and the cramps were persistent despite his efforts to stay limber.

It’d been translucent, once upon a time, now it was just a dull grey.

Little left here untarnished, and the spot of red one misshapen lump of a corner sans edge could have told an interesting tale.

As if speculation had ever been his fancy.

As it was he preferred to back his ideas with action and such was now no longer allowed due to the lack of chemicals, or tools, or anything really.  They’d switched out his clothes for a suicide smock, pale violet, that’d surely set his previous neighbor to raucous laughter if the man were capable of laughter.  But he wasn’t, not anymore, the poor soul spent most of his time screaming now.

Shame they’d moved him, but his pseudo suicidal attempt had left him all on his lonesome.  He’d weighed amusement of the screams against the blessed silence, and compiled the acts of seeming  self-harm and harming of another’s psyche beyond all repair and the results were both quaint and quiet.

 Not even the guards would interact, save to surly ask if he was still suicidal, the query came through the flap, as did his meals.  Four times out of five the orderlies didn’t bother to ask.  If he were... well he’d be a dead man, not that any would care.

There would be no man, woman, or child at his funeral.

Such a thought would be a crushing loneliness to most, the realization that their fears of being alone were ever confirmed.  As for what revelations this brought to him, there were none in his room he could impart his mind, there were none in any room near him so he need not scream his revelation, and for that he smiled.  The silence was blessed, as were the screams, each a praise, a prayer, a hosanna, and though they lacked the coherence they all spoke the same word over and over again.

_Scarecrow._

In the silence, that imperfect flawed quiet, he smiled, and then cackled, breaking it asunder with a grim mirth. 

A creek of the flap stilled his voice, because such a pause would seem ominous to the simpleton on the other side.  Low and behold, the quiet from beyond extended, and he smiled though his audience of one surely couldn’t see.  It was delectable, the sense of fear he could feel pouring from beyond the door.  If only there wasn’t a door he might, just might be able to add one more paean upon the sympathy.

Still, some calculation could make it sweeter.  He already had unsettling mirth and all the phobias it could brush up against, tie it with seeming omnipotence and…

“James… you are going to be late, dithering like this.  Shouldn’t you be running along?” The flap slapped down, sans nutrients… while... not wholly satisfactory he was satiated and that would be enough.

Would have to be.

The thud of feet in flight, the flutter of wings.

Both were charmingly, awfully one and the same.

Facing away from the door, the void that would have been filled with styrofoam and substance amongst it the granular folds that was tentatively edible, there were likely additives were included, the applesauce (a favorite a shame) was highly suspect.  Still, it was better not to contemplate such things, he’d long for that which was not left, and that which had left and such things left tells.  So Crane considered the nearest wall.  So close, an off white, its proximity enforced by a step or two too close to be comfortable.  Long arm reaching up he crooked his fingers without thought, set paltry makeshift trimmed talon against the swell of padding and scrapped down.

Again and again, in careful sight of the window and the uncaring souls beyond it.

None came, not even when the skin broke, and the horizontal marks were streaked in red.  None commented, save the custodian who loosed bitter bitter disinfectant upon the marks and would not allow him to collect even the leanest sample for his research.  She'd cursed at him, the guard held him back in a grim grip that he hated.

So he spent the time of cleaning watching, and remembering, setting aside a differnt set of files carefully segregated from his notations upon formula but left close enough that there might have been a hope for comingling. One page for the brute who held, and one for the fool woman who witheheld.

Both would pay, all in due time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait, I rewrote this chapter multiple times until I was satisfied with it.
> 
> Thanks for the patience.
> 
> Also thanks to those who kudosed and who bookmarked, thanks for taking the time to read.

Quiver chapter 2

Funny, what we hope for

 

 

To say she was a wide eyed idealist was an understatement.

He looked at her, she at him, and the orderlies looked on, not really caring as he wasn’t raving, threatening the wom- no, she was a child, such unabashed innocence could only belong in a child- since no threatening or other mad shenanigans were ensuing they orderlies were quite content to act as if nothing untoward was occurring.

Never mind the five protocols this meeting had violated thus far.

Sighing he settled back on his bed of sorts, and closed his eyes and waited.  Waited for her to step in, for her to cross the painfully broken boundary of the open door and step right on in.  It’d cap the stupidity.

He wasn’t in a straightjacket for God’s sake!  He’d poisoned the masses, his last eight doctors had left him in tears… and there was rumors of one suicide, which left him to wonder if it was going to be obligatory that he be gagged.

Probably not in his immediate future if this one’s unfailingly efforts to be nice lingered a while.

An odd sound made him look up, look up and stare though she smiled.  The gesture was saccharine incarnate, and he ached for something bitter to balance the lot out.

“You’re knocking on my doorframe?”  Crane gapped.

“Can I come in?”

To that nicety Crane cracked open his eyes and raised an eyebrow, not bothering to rise from his sprawl.  He wasn’t going to meet her on her own ground and match “kindness to kindness”, it was utter ludicrous that she’d expect him to do so.  Reputation as a mad man be hanged, he’d not have greeted her any warmer when he was a simply just a man, sans the mad.

“Tell me, has Arkham stopped issuing the mandatory psychological exams on the incoming doctors?”

“Hardly.”  She was such a silly thing, lifting her lips and baring her teeth in an expression too wide to be painless.  “Come along Doctor Crane, if you don’t want to have your first “session”-”  she added air quotes to the word, making him wonder which to despair more for, her juvenile mind or for the institute that had given her a degree.  “-in your room we could manage a walk to my office, it is a walk though.”

He lay there, torn between flabbergasted shock and something much like nausea.

“Come on, up up!”  She cheered, he could have given her pom poms and…  that image needed to be  firmly scrubbed from his mind with acid, mind bleach (as preposterous as it was) would not have availed  him and he’d gladly take the brain damage setting acid upon his grey matter would cause if only to get that  image out of his mind.

Her hopping about, all but cheering him to get up like he were some stroppy adolescent was enough that the guards were looking at her oddly now.

Well misery and company and all that.

Decision made, Crane slid his eyes shut and waited.  It took a hellishly long time for her cheer to dissipate and realize that no, the ex-Doctor present madman Mr. Crane was not going to get up no matter how much she cheered.  He waited, waited for the inevitable pretty please, because really, she was that degenerated that she might.  And while not screams pathetic whining was part of the cycle of fear (usually the pre-tears part) and he’d take what he could.

Still she surprised him, the near chirping ended in a huff much late than anticipated.  And her solution to the problem he was presenting, with his passive aggressive non-compliance, she nipped it quite nicely in a way he couldn’t protest.  Or even say was undeserved.

“Boys, the doctors being very bad, if you would?”

The brutes at her back stopped sharing incredulous looks and seemed to realize they were on the clock.  At her command they recalled that they weren’t watching some sort of offbeat psych thriller with a Sookie -what was that actress’s name? ah well- with some klutzy protagonist.   This wouldn’t end in those tidy life lessons and a plot that congealed madness into sanity in thirty minutes or less.  The realization that yes, this was real, and yes, they were going to be handling a very dangerous man in the immediate future crashed in on them.  Their responses were a study of contrasts.  One grinned, the other grimaced, still they both approached and he found himself ingloriously hauled up, a quick squirming scuffle and he had his arms wrenched behind his back and he was cuffed.

If he kicked the man who smirked to wipe the look off of his face, well he _was_ a malicious man, it said so in his files.

And though pain wasn’t fear, it had its own kind of savor, and he’d take what he could.

Suffice to say he didn’t go peacefully, still his struggles were quit as he eschewed screaming and the like other inmates favored.  He snarled, using his frame to set one of the duo to stagger.  The door the near fall caused them to hit shuddered back as something within violently responded was delectable, as was the mans startled shout before he recalled himself and reentered the fray.  To the violence of their scuffle the woman (so small, so slender, so vulnerable, her screams… they didn’t sound, he seethed in frustration at that) had the sense to step back.  But there was no fear in her eyes, not when they were face to face, though the circumstances might have derailed any hope for terror.  What man should be feared, nearly crushed by the grip and pressures of a brutes grip and brought to his literal knees before her?

It was a fair enough misunderstanding, he offered the child a snarling baring of teeth that was ringed with sweat and marred with pants. 

“We… we didn’t have to do that…”  She murmured her palor contrasted with the hand she extended, only to retract as she remembered...

Only the pounding of her pulse, near visible in her throat, allowed him to forgive her the stupidity of daring to care about him.  Still daring a grin, with guards about any expression was daring, he allowed himself to be hauled up.  His knees protested and were likely bruised for their being slammed into the floor.

He’d get the two lout’s names later. He preferred his vengeance cold after all, and the time would allow him to contemplate a few formulaic variants unfit for human consumption.

“My dear child,” He purred about each rasping breath.  “We did, and it’s done.  Don’t fret so, it’s unbecoming.”

“But…”  Eyes wide, such a soft sky blue, she looked at him.  All dear and doleful, and so hurt and lost.  He grinned at her near perfect façade, oh he’d quite enjoy finding the flaws and fractures, a few words, a few revelations, and the lot would all come crashing down.  And though that would reveal so much… perhaps he pitied her, her wide eyes and such unseemly caring.

For he did as he had not for any of the others, offering a route of least resistance.

“What do you fear, child?”

His seeming non-sequester was enough to make her start.  She considered it, considered him, lips pressed into a thin line while she thought, here eyes slid to the side, studying monochrome from about the edges of perception for answers perhaps.

“Doc,”  So spoke the bruised, Crane didn’t look up, acknowledged the man or his warning, all his regard was on this too young, too innocent child set before him in a doctor’s apparel.   The bruising grip on his arm that tightened to agonizing, to that Crane grit his teeth least he hiss.  “You don’t wanna tell this man that, you don’t wanna tell him _anything._ ”

She stiffened, showing she had some spine after all, and met first the orderlies gaze, then his own.  All fledgling terror was gone, and something of professionalism touched her face.  Or rather it was a façade of such.  He snorted, even as she held his gaze as coolly as so many of her predecessors had dared, her clipboard which she crushed against her chest was the only tell of her anxiety.

“I thank you for your concern but who is the doctor in this situation, sir?”

“Well.. umm…”

She started walking, high heels clicking like knives tapped against the table top.  Sans the ring of steel, still there was a near threat to the staccato step and the brutes on either side picked him up and dragged him along.

They walked in silence, for a little while, until the thuds of the unsettled faded and the screams of the cloistered mad had yet to resound.  In that quiet the doctor who wasn’t and the doctor who was might have been, if he hadn’t gotten caught, traded glares.  Well rather he’d glared at her, she simply glanced back at him.

“I’ve a first aid kit in my office; the fact that no one has tended your hands is a disgrace.”

Crane could almost hear the guards thoughts brewing over his head.  About how much they dared get away with now that someone who noticed and seemed ready to act upon what she’d seen was about.  Still that small reprieve didn’t mean he was going to reward the chit with conversation.  Discontent with the quiet the young woman hummed, blonde locks swishing about her neck as she was caught up in the whimsy of her own melody.

A more violent man might consider it a hand hold, a means to grip and strangle, or at least wheel her in for such strangulation.

If she didn’t find some other song, very very soon, Crane might be adding violent to his profile.

At the end of the song she didn’t kick up with another, but then the silence wasn’t present anymore.  Someone was screaming and Crane stiffened, trying to pinpoint the cell, the cause, but their pace was crisp and his attention was all the justification for his guards to find old bruises and apply pressure.  Thus they’d forbidden him a pleasure, without words.

They’d scream for days for that.

Perhaps the screaming had jarred something like a thought in the child’s mind, for she turned; walked backwards in heels, to better address him.

“Will you tell me your fear, if I indulge you in mine?”

Another nicety?  Crane tipped his head, lips quirking in a near smile at the silliness of it all.

“Perhaps.”

“Fine then, I’ll go first, spiders, and it’s got nothing to do about the eyes, just in case you were wondering…”  She tapped her own lenses, cosmetically small, they caught the light just so, glinting, a fitting match for the eyes barely obscured.  “The legs are just creepy, you know?  Twitchy.”

The floors were becoming carpeted only the doctors were allowed such a luxer-  Oh dear the child was below land level...  Well Hugo was a man who believed in putting people in their place, and arranging things by importance.  So didn’t it say it all?  They approached a door, a wooden door bereft of personal marking, even a name plate.  The girl pulled open, sans lock, sans key, he shook his head at the sight, and they were in.  It was as sparse as a cell… an altered cell no less.  The additives were a bit more room than the norm, a rug, two chairs swiped form a waiting room upstairs, and a few unopened boxes stacked in the corner.  A very fine lair of wooden dust about the floor peaked his interest.

“I didn’t finish constructing my desk before I was sent out on rounds.”  The woman murmured, losing some of her enthusiasm in shame.

“Policy was,” Crane grunted as the orderlies set him down on one of the chair.  All plastic and generic in form and gaudy to boot.  Small mercies that there was no cracks about the seat or back, though he noted one on her chair.  Chivalry, reversed about and poorly aimed besides, she was sitting, as was he, only a few feet where furniture was supposed to sit lay between them. “clearly overlooked here.”

“Hugo’s’ a strange man.”  The woman still was without her near manic cheer.  At his smirk she rewound the last few words then grinned in turn. “Pun _unintended_.  A lot of policies are being overlooked lately.  Boys, thank you, I’ll call if something comes up.”

There was silence as the woman settled in her chair, shifting her skirts just so, and her coat to compliment the lot.  The door opened and closed, and once they were gone Crane indulged a sprawl of his own, half in half out the chair, and let his blue eyes comb over the room and what it lacked.

It was a sadly long inventory of what wasn’t.

“You’ve got not intercom, no desk, no emergency button in said desk or even on the wall.”  Crane snapped out, disgust at the audacity of having all his policies to keep his people safe merrily disregarded by a replacement he’d never even heard of.  It was stupid, he hadn’t cared for any of the lot, but this situation was a lawsuit waiting to happen.  Outrage overrode his earlier resolve to be silent and stubborn.

“Cell phone, Dr. Crane.  A wonder of modern technology.” 

Wisely she didn’t flash said phone, broadcast the pocket.

Smart girl.

“You’ll want to invest in a lock, you _are_ aware that Victor is down here, on this floor, correct?”

“Who?”

Alright, not that smart, but still, first day perhaps...

_Hopefully._


	3. Progress postponed

Quiver

Progress then

 

“Why spiders?”

If he were without his smock, all violet and blaring, he’d see about getting something more suited to his tastes in time.  Time was something he had in abundance, patience simply complimented his lot.  Hands, clasped together, the pose might have been prayerful had he been one for prayer.  As it was he simply considered the strips of brown, one blue when the brown had run out, that adorned his fingers.  She’d tended his wounds, going so far as to… well he wasn’t bandaged, but Band-Aids were affixed to the each digit, and the scent of disinfectant to the lot was almost homely.

Her prattle about protecting his hands from himself was noted, but he hadn’t comment.  She’d been close, grabbing, strangulation close, hovering over him and clucking over his wounds like he were a boy who’d scraped his hands on the sidewalk.

Only a caustic comment to that effect had kept her from checking his knees.

“So you didn’t trip?”

“You didn’t answer my question first.”  Crane countered, ever fixated on his hands.  The glint of illumination on his handcuffs had him quite enthralled.

“Well if we’re going to go like _that_ for this meeting,”  She stood straightened, slipping slivers of paper in her pocket as she went.  Her tone was decidedly… snippy.  But then her whole demeanor had altered upon entering this room.  It was a gradual corrosion of her cheer, or rather a slight toning down of the sun per the applications of shades.  Still painful to bask in, but somewhat bearable to see by.

Basic deduction, she didn’t like it.  She didn’t like this room and all that it said about her and her place.  Status consciousness this repetitive said more than the façade itself.  He rattled phobias in his mind, like a lock pickier twiddling his tools… her reactions were too exact to be social phobia per say, but her distaste upon lacking and regard had a flavoring, ever so slight of Soteriophobia.

It was something to consider.

Really Hugo was a fool; even he had bothered to make the fresh meat somewhat comfortable before sic’ing them on the mass of the mad that coagulated here.  Hands fisted he raised them enough to put his chin upon them and look up at the girl.  She’d settled back into her chair, observing all the niceties about appearances while keeping a smile on her face.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

As if he were to forget, he waited, eyebrow arched, whole expression scolding.

Sadly what had worked in his earliest days as a teacher, a career ago, in Georgia dear departed, despised Georgia, worked on her.  She started squirming almost right off the ba- right off.

Freshly graduated, thus screamed her reaction.  So much so she hadn’t shaken the impulses of her student days.

While she rallied, and deluded his ears with banter about how things were going to look and how they’d be, better, brighter, and the like, Crane contemplated.

Smug confidence met disappointment of a challenge lacking; it was an interesting mix with a peculiar taste. Assessment: This was going to be far too easy.  He gave her… four weeks… but only because he. was going to drag this out somewhat.  After all it had taken the incompetents who’d replaced him so long to bring him a replacement willing to play.  He’d treat his test subject delicately, breaking her psyche down to its base components, than further out of spite. 

Because that last line, about his clothes being a refreshing spot of color really just went too far.

“So you agree?”  She chirped, happy simply to see him happy.

She really should have gone into pediatric medicine; it would have suited her personality so much more.

“Smiling, my dear child, is not compliance.  If you must know I was indulging quite the mental tangent.”

“Oh really.”  Recalling herself, and her place, she slipped a pen from behind her ear (how he’d missed it earlier well he’d blame he medications, they made reality… tricky at times)  “Care to divulge?”

“I’m not a fan of interior decorating, or what flowers would be best in the blue atrocity you claim is a vase atop the box…”  He confessed, eyebrows quirking, he was the picture of benign humor.  First session in… he’d be gentle, so long as it amused him to do so.  “Monochrome, my dear, is a favorite of mine.  Grey and black and white, so much can be said with those simple shades, with an occasional interlude of red to liven things up.”

“Sunflowers a bit over the top then?”  She hummed, not quite deflating, or answering his prompt.

He tabbed on another two weeks to his time table and raised his estimate of her skills a few notches.

Considering it had been barrel bottom, the latter wasn’t too hard.

“Yellow makes me twitch so.”

Huffing a quiet sigh, the Docter dropped all pseudo cheer, her glare was exasperated and refreshingly genuine.

“Seriously Dr. Crane, that’s almost as bad a joke as green head’s Harlequin stab.”

“Hm?”  Crane stiffened considered her, her name tag, and then laughed.  Crane’s laughter was a brittle broken thing; still he indulged his mirth a show, though it was a quiet and quick viewing with this audience of one.  Still he was smiling, and without malice, at laughter’s end.  “Seriously, he didn’t!”

“First words out of his mouth.  Thank God he isn’t my patient.  Jean’s got him.”

“Leland is in for a trying time.”

“The staff chipped in, condolence basket for getting a bad basket case.  You’ve heard of that?”

 Heard of it?  He’d given a few of them out, or at least organized a few to be given when he’d considered his station too lofty for such sympathetic trinkets to come from him directly.  His aloofness had been much to his benefit.  During a surge of productivity on both professional and private fronts he’d mixed a gel to spike the applicator’s anxiety.  It was a benign alternative to outright terror, one that he’d mixed sparingly into the creams and disinfectants he’d put in some poor souls basket anonymously. 

Work had been lively as he’d juggled both patients and pleasure.  Subtly spying on the recipient of his gifts and later learning she’d dodged the most potent of his works simply by throwing out the coconut crème skin revitalizer.  That had been vexing, but seeing his efforts of his other mixtures had smoothed out what feathers had been inadvertently ruffled.

“Possibly,” Crane conceded, without really admitting to anything at all.

Her answering eye roll while unprofessional was understandable.

“You,” she noted, whilst scratching something in her papers, “are going to be a handful.”

He smirked; it was all the response he was going to bother with today.

“Then, I assume time is up?”  Crane drawled.  The rap on the door, followed by its opening via an orderly was answer enough.  “Ah well… perhaps next session will be enlightening, until next week then?”

And never mind who was being hauled up and being lead out.  He knew, as did she (the familiar widening of the eyes, the nip of her lips, that lost shocked look of something missing recognized as gone) who was in power here.  His smile burned for its wideness.

Still, there was something of steel to her, for she shook off her shock, railed what courage she laid claim to, and met his gaze without flinching.  Only one of her predecessors had managed to do so before Crane had been was carted away.  For that he’d give her her dues, and acknowledge the limitations present.  Shock wasn’t fear, it didn’t last as long, nor linger.

“You never answered my question.”  She snapped, at his retreating form, and to that the orderly hesitated in hauling him off.  A snarl and shake on Crane’s part got them moving, and it was only Crane’s repartee that kept her from following.

“Next week doctor, perhaps we’ll make some progress then.”


	4. Idle thoughts and plans

Quiver 

Idle thoughts and plans

 

He should be at his prayers.  As sun slipped behind blocky smog smeared horizon the thought came to him all unwanted.

Not unexpected though.

It was, in its way, inevitable.  Though hardly humane he was human enough to be drawn by habit. And he was educated enough to be able to rattle on and on about techniques to break through habits, the pseudo-addiction routine gifted those locked in it.  He’d applied them to himself as needed to better let loose certain psychological baggage and all ties to his upbringing it held.

So, when the thought came, all unwanted, Crane sighed.  Clearly progress wasn’t as “forward directed” as it could have been.  It was less like a visiting friend and more like that tiresome brat who truly and sincerely needed to be lynched.  Because if he so much as looked sideways at the doorbell again...  Well the roots went deep in the trees of Georgia, and the branches were both wide and sturdy enough to bear fruit.

No matter how grim the fruit might be.

Rising from his bed of sorts he stretched, all long limbed and achy.

Really the bed was hell, he’d have to find who’d issues the damn things and send his appreciation along via inoculation.

Between the straight jacket he was shoveled into when he was hauled out of his rooms for “social encouragement” time (foolery handed down from his previous doctor, something he’d have to bring to the attention of this one if he wanted it to stop) and group therapy which he was jacketed and gagged (really, didn’t that defeat the purpose there-of), and the occasional excursion outside to let him get vitamin D least he die of complications per lacking, add to that where he normally slept and he felt that pins and needles was quite becoming his default mood.

He’d have to inquire if Harleen believed in tracking her patient’s moods.  He didn’t show any classic signs of flatline emotion but his “history” of mood swings might allow him to have the practice applied.

As he paced about in a tight circles, pausing to rotate his neck and shoulders, shake out his hands, he pursued a pedestrian plot.

He could insist upon the addition being added to the traditional lot, if he did so, picking the right tones and inflections he might be able to manipulate his personal cell into having better accommodations.  Obviously not solitary, since he was suicidal and all that, but by having such niceties then compiling the guilt of having them kept away from him while he was in such obvious pain…

To such a tender heart, he could be his most callous, and she’d ascribe it as a symptom of his chronic discomfort.  She’d set a goal of “cheering him up” because she’d adore such juvenile words and so that was what it would be best called to them both.  Patient doctor communication was pivotal after all. He’d make an effort to appear cheered.  Somewhat.  He’d have to balance his warming with his natural state, a mild challenge he conceded, but it would be the first of such in a while.

Then… then… if he handled the whole lot right…

He’d have the pleasure of a bed, a real bed.  Not the four-posted monstrosity back at his apartment, or the long warped armchair from home that he’d loved all the more for the sleeves its previous owner had sewn into the sides to hold a book of choice…

He bent his legs, knelt on padded floors that weren’t thick enough to hide the fact that the walls were molded concrete and settled for sprawling.  Was it his fault that he was driven by habit to assume the pose he’d seen a thousand times in a place he should have called home?

No, simply something engrained that he’d have to work on.

Arms spread, legs held tight, he twined ideas into like threads of straw about the fingers, twisting, turning, till idle became something a bit more serious and he knotted it all.  Never mind that none could see his works, or his efforts, he set it upon the floor with care, and would ever mind where he stepped in that part of these rooms.

Closing his eyes, he considered sleep, the chill of the floor could be combated with time and presence, all he had to be was patient and let his body heat soak into the floor.

Humming softly he broke the tune with to yawn.

Two tracks, he decided, reaching for what wasn’t.  Running the whole knotted lot between his fingers as he had ran his more creative efforts of folded corn stalks about as a child.  Pagan clap trap his Gran had called it, the one piece he’d dared shown…  Not in appreciation, or as a misbegotten means to garner affection, but as a motion of placation. She had a wicked temper for one so devout.  But, he’d learned that from idle fingers came tainted gifts, she’d not spared him the rod then, or ever.

His hands had smarted so much.  Had burned, were burned, as hellfire would, so she’d assured.  The shock of what had been caused his fingers to cringe, but a last second jolt of realization was enough for him salvage the lot in a last second snatch.

He smiled, cradling the lot to his chest and decided to leave enough alone for now.

_Lonesome, Jonathan?_

Not that that one ever would.

“Hardly.  It’s such a good idea, don’t you think, I wouldn’t want to let it go.”

What little light had lingered was surly gone, and to that The Scarecrow was about, running amok, and raising what humble hell he could.  After all, they were such wicked people, tainted at birth by sinful mothers, so why not?  Not that he got up too much without Jonathan, though Jonathan might be content in the silence and solitude  Scarecrow was not.

A rustle, he didn’t turn his head, had learned long ago not to.  The sounds of the scrawny figure settling were as familiar as the voice that was not.  The scent of earth and straw was enough to widen his smirk into a smile and he shifted a bit so the other could properly sprawl if he were so inclined.  Not that he ever did. Scarecrow curled up in a ball to Jonathan’s side, he was all battered brown cloth and a stick thin frame (a stick poking out of the shoulders, a bad break he’d never let Jonathan mend) and shedding bits of himself wherever he went…  The doctor made a mental note to have to ask the cleaning personnel to do a brisk sweep in the morning.  Humming the tune he’d quit Scarecrow pried open the man’s hands (it itched and tickled, and the man checked a squirm) to better consider his weave and all its convolutions.

“Any good, you think?”  Jonathan asked.

 _Possibly .  A bit simple considering the others_.  _I’ll look it over better later._

“Tired.”  The Doctor confessed, indulging in another yawn that had the other nattering bout stretching string too far too wide and did he want his head to fall apart.  To that and other absurdities Jonathan grumbled out a weary.  “Fine… it’s fine... just...”

 _Then sleep, stupid_.  The malice was as the voice was, not.  _We’ll be out and about soon enough anyway, so sleep sleeping beauty.  I’ll wake you in time for breakfast call, that way we can spook the guard._

A giggle, his, his own, he wasn’t sure.  Still he was smiling in the end.

“Sounds nice.”

He slept, untroubled by dreams, with only an ache of encroaching pain and the rustle of straw and dried corn stalk to keep him company.


	5. Chapter 5

Quiver 

Chapter 5

Mail 

 

Samuel was in today. 

Out of all the guards, he was Crane’s favorite.

Breakfast sans medication, it was always a treat to not spend half the morning picking out oddities and additives.  It slid through the flap with a becoming promptness and a sweet little whimper on the side.  For that, and that alone, Scarecrow refrained from any unnerving antics.  Picking up the lot he set it in his lap, and found the brittle something taped underneath.  Like a child at Christmas he wondered at his find, tactile analysis proved it too lumpy to be napkins, too soft to be anything he could use to facilitate an escape, and finally it was Crane who spoiled the mood and simply lifted the lot up and glare at his plate’s underbelly with all his myopic might.

Irritation fell at the find and with a smile rather unbecoming the master of fear he pulled off the envelope, minding the tape which might have been salvageable, though how it could have helped, and why whatever if could have helped was more important than Scarecrow’s need to feel a sensation not related to the walls or pins and needles wasn’t elaborated on.

“Hush.”  Crane snapped to the other, who was about ready to kick up a row.  “Eat if you must, but leave me to my reading.”

 _Es ah ‘nny._   Came the time worn complaint.

Only after some chewing, swallowing, and spectacularly awful grimaces later, did Crane bother to reply to the familiar thread of grousing.

“Well eat something else then.”

_Dibs on the applesauce._

“Don’t you d-“

The munching that insured was grotesquely loud and smacking of a denial with attendant lip smacking made Crane sigh.  Juvenile, very juvenile.  Deciding to prove above it all he eschewed the matter of eating as he normally did, a distraction, and simply got about to reading.

The shape and form of the letters was as familiar to him as the very alphabet, but regarded with more fondness.  He soaked in the angles and lines, scraping his bandaged hands over the letters front and back, until in frustration he ripped off the lot all to better acquire  what facts he could from the textures.

Only when the lot was becoming smeared with red did he recall the state of his hands, and carefully spread the first page upon his lap.

Yellow, legal pad save she didn’t favor legalities, and the pen was sputtering, it’s eminent death evident in the spans that had been touched up, or simply left unfilled by ink in fear of tearing the page beyond legibility.

“Dear Professor Crane,

I know, I know, its _doctor_ now… but if you’d stop your beastly scowling at the page-“

Not that he was, she’d always been so weary of causing injury and seeking to tend to any potential hurt before it could begin.  A trait that said so much and that no rebuke could properly entice her to remedy.

“-I might be able to explain.  It’s been a year now… little more little less depending on how you mark the time.  We’ve moved twice because they said we have too.  They say it’s safer now, and would be safest to play fast and quick with certain truths.  I’m… honestly I’m not horridly happy to have to go back to school considering I tested out last year but my doctor says it’s for the best, and keeps saying it, as do the movers, and the lot of them.  It’s as if repeating it will make it true.  I’m sure there’s some polysyllable psychological jargon to best encapsulate the lot, a term you take to as regularly as you do the cream to coffee… and I’d wager a month’s allowance you’re writing it down just this very moment.-“

She knew him far too well, though all he could do was trace the letters on the floor he was already scratching out the word upon the padding.  His penmanship almost as compromised as hers, though is pen was of a more macabre slant.  Still he smiled, ignoring the sting of his digits.

“It’d offer a word to properly challenge you, bit of this for a bit of that, but I’ve little doubt you know what Xanthophobia is so I won’t challenge the master at his own game.”

While most would consider it smart, practical, he sighed at the proof of what he’d known before and hoped to find a means to deny.  Whatever had happened, between now and the year that wasn’t depending on how one marked time…  She’d weathered more than two moves.  Her words and certain facets, particularly the slant despite the supporting lines, and the lowness of certain lines…  He frowned, combing discourse from beginning to end, face twisting into grimace at analysis’ end.

 _Worry about what is later, you can’t do much now_.  So the raspy rustle advised.  He didn’t like that, or the taste of dry flakey whatever it was from the tray.  Still he ate, and carried on, taking care not to look too much.

Still the change of topic, the dissolution of quality, did much to destroy what lean comfort the advice had offered.

“Do you think it odd of me, to simply be writing to say that I miss you?  We had our first day and when it wasn’t you at the desk…  I just thought I’d write to Professor Crane who is a doctor now.

Molly”

Letter done, its abruptness and the hints compiled quite grimly, he picked up the other telling his concerns to wait awhile. It wasn’t much a wait. The next letter was a series of quick nonsensical scratching upon post-it-notes, the bunch stuck together, making a book miniature of a simple correspondence.

And the same traits that had plagued her then were more magnified, though some of that was in part due to the lean means of her writing.

Flicking the pages over his fingers, red tipping the edge, not that he cared, she had enough care for the three of them.  There was enough space for careless dribbling’s, though she’d had to curtail her script somewhat to accommodate his careless hands.

Still, she’s think it something benign, not blood, never that.  She was too gentle a child to even muse upon blood and pain.  The very idea would horrify her.  He’d fumbled hot coffee cups often enough in her presence and spilled chilled caffeinated beverages about his papers over that year.  She’d have teased him then, tweaked her papers formatting so that when he did fumble she’d lose no text to his careless hands.

For her, he’d allowed it. She was the only one who’d noticed or cared so he indulged her indulgence of kindness and allowed her to tweak at his lack of grace from time to time.

Riffling through the other letters, two more “books” of a sort, one more on spiral notebook, a white relief to the continuous offerings of yellow, Crane decided on two things.  Solitary’s reprieve was over, furthermore it wasn’t safe.  Not for what little remained of his sake of mind.

For the letters was a little over a month old.

And considering her preferred color, considering her query that wasn’t, and the declining slants, the compilation led to some rather ugly conclusions.

Scarecrow picked up the nearest letter with his left hand, savoring the texture of pages and sticky and how the edges prickled the cuts Jonathan read the offering with a grimace of pain.

 _Taboo, I suppose_.  Consoled the rasp, more crackle and breaking than it was before, Scarecrow’s voice had only dissolved that sharply post… that night.  That hellish night, post poisoning.

Preoccupied with recollection, with bitterness, he partook from repast that felt more venomous than anything else and neither noticed or would have cared that for the rest of the day he was offered nothing else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Xanthophobia is the fear of the color yellow it has some ties to suicide. Here's the article for any interested.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xanthophobia
> 
> During the scene where Crane is running his hands over the letter he is using his hands as a means to check the pressure of the writing. This is a trick used in graphology. Graphology is a form of psychoanalysis that hinges upon the traits of handwriting to give information about a persons well being. Downward slant is considered a trait shown by those depressed especially when present in lined paper samples.
> 
> I'll offer a link with more information when I have the chance.


	6. Room Temperature

Quiver:

Chapter 6

Room Temperature  


She’d checked the lot out. Copies, not the original, because Dr. Strange kept the originals of everyone’s information in the office, staff and patients. There were protocols, she supposed, for dead and quit doctors. In Arkham there had to be. Paperwork had to be put somewhere, but where Crane’s was was at first unknown.  

It’d made what should have been a quick trip on the way out into an hour long wait for Clarice in chase missing paperwork and to get her act together.

Harleen’d poured over the confidentiality papers she’d signed after the fact. Little wonder the blonde had played paper keep away when she’d asked (nicely mind) to read before she signed.

The fines for being a leak were astronomical and little plans, selfish vain things, about books and other things… She set them aside for now.

Holding the still warm pages, printer toasty, she read as she walked. Taking work home wasn’t against the rules, just so long as it weren’t the patients. She smiled, because what else could she do? Wasn’t it silly, taking someone out, they acted like madness was catchy, and that bit of whimsy carried her feet through rooms through security check points to parking lot without what she read making an impact.

Seriously who’d be so out of their mind that they’d take a patient out much less bring them home?

These papers were as far as she ever going to get to doing that.

Humming she perused ramblings and ranting with an unbecoming smirk. Because, cheer aside and perhaps adding to it, she caught liberal bits of plagiarism. Clearly the good Professor liked his horror novels and wasn’t above quoting the peculiar Doctor Lector. Snapping enough to reality to handle the key and lock and breaking off in full she set papers down in the passenger seat and feeling whim return buckled her and them in. Doubt she’d be able to use them when she hit the interstate as a viable excuse.

And again, fickle thought flickered in her mind. Her pulled over, an officer demanding to see her passenger and why was she speeding in the carpool lane…

Papers were obviously not going to cut it.

So she drove home resisting the mild temptation to be bad and silly all at once. The skies above her darkening to grit grey that was swallowed by a cloud bellied black. A few flicks of the lights mad the dark the world’s problem, and considering it didn’t look like rain thunderstorms and power outages were out so it would stay the world’s problem.

 

Flicking on lights, closest to farthest, and the closets besides, she paused in her illumination only once to raid the kitchen. Though mainly thread bear she did have a small indulgence of butter and popcorn and a quick stint at the stove got both together in all the right ways.

If this was horror that she was to read she’d read it like any good flick deserved, as entertainment, read it once and then treat it as it meant to be. Forgotten.

But the thing about horror, or so Jonathan would purr at her in some distant session, is that it is immortal, it always comes back. All it takes is a span of shut eyes, a lull or flicker of the light and there it was, once again. Perhaps not as it had _been_ , but it was, and always revisiting, laughter and whimsy might push it back, but the stillness after was horrors home.

So she read, noting time and date (One year ago… a little over so it’d began) and seeing the simplicity of the first few sessions, she was lulled. He seemed… remarkably well behaved for a Master of Fear. His ravings of earlier were wildly out of character with… she flipped a few pages ahead, finding answers to the expected wherever she went. Nothing out of the norm. Her predecessors had been very by the book. Adamantly refusing to cater to Crane’s attempts to turn the tables or even to elaborate on a given question. Whenever the man grew hostile, or biting, or had been caught trying to verbally turn the tables (there’d been a few where he hadn’t) he’d been thrown out by quickly summoned guards.

There were notes of no progress though, simply shorter and shorter sessions.

Then one session, pages blank, an hour and fifteen minutes per time stamp, the guards had been late, and an excuse, triviality piled upon difficulty, a short, and outage, noted to be fixed by a stapled on maintenance report. An unworded assurance of “this won’t happen again”.

After that the sessions became longer, the notes more discordant, acquiring a slant of ramble about their edges. The guards were called less and less.

The quotes came in now, she smiled at them, they felt… well not _familiar_ but proper and set in their proper place. Still smiling, nibbling on over salted popcorn she found another blank page… save it wasn’t quite blank.

There was a dark smear of _something_ to the page. Monochrome made it hard to tell what, but the page beyond it sport what looked like a…. Harleen forgot the popcorn, the thought killed her appetite and when the smell reminded her she pushed the bowl aside, set pages in bowls place. The copy wasn’t colored, and if she was right about what that smear was, the hands long smear, that trailed down and spattered… well she suspected that the original sported one page that was a copy and the original page was burned.

Curiosity of a macabre slant caused her to set her hand over lines place.

If she set her wrist just so… it was broader, certainly, and not a perfect palm print, but a hand had been set flat over the page, wrenched about then dragged over the pages, wrenched down. And the marks were surely made blood. What else had there been available to use? She mimed the path, and shivered seeing her han there, borrowing a bit of color from fancy… She shuddered, then was shoving back from couch and pages and not caring how the lot went over with a clatter and patter.

Heart pounding, shivering she stomped up to the heater but found the room set to what was her norm.

She turned it up anyway.


	7. Number 9

Quiver 

chapter 7

Patient number 9

Crane hated Mondays. When dawn was just a molten line along the horizon pressed into the cracks and crevices of the distant jumbled city scape his door would be wrenched open and the bulkiest of the brutes would be by to round him up. He never came willingly, made them earn his capture though they had him contained. His tally was bruises, his and there’s, and he was bundled into a straightjacket by his captors no matter his efforts.

Not that he didn’t mind but when his tally was lower than there hellish joy would resound, he’d… _they’d_ … not be able to help themselves...

Thus he was bound and gagged and choked out of spite and the tally… well one was bleeding and the other battered. Brutes could never grasp the joy of physics, always assumed that more mass meant more power. To their stupidity compiled upon a simple pleasure and he had more than enough cause to celebrate.

His victory was no less lessoned when he was dragged to group therapy. Kicking and writhing, he’d taken one of the brutes down with a calculated stagger that they had to arrest least they look cruel publically. And the joy of having such long limbs and being more coordinated than expected met in wonderful ways with the flimsy folded chairs of this room… Suffice to say one twist and a tangle had gotten him on the floor and his captor had to get help in untangling himself from a particularly faulty chair that should have been pulled months ago. Ah well, while they shuffled out, one leaning on the other Jonathan situated himself according to whim, back to the wall, long legs sprawled, only nominally a part of the circle that he’d so unwillingly been dumped into.

“We’ll be back in an hour.”

So spoke the standing, his partner obviously was going to medical, and though it should have been beyond him, the Scarecrow managed a smile for them to spite his bindings and them both.

Death, or perhaps a beating later was promised in their regard.

His… well his held assurances that they hadn’t caught all his tricks and whiles behind his teeth (with the gag there could truly be no other way), but his fearlessness in the face of certain cruelty had a wonderful, delightful effect. A shudder, averted eyes, then the sluggish steeling that tried to muffle the sight of budding fear was so invigorating.

Humming, though words were beyond him, noise was not, he picked an aria, nothing specific mind, something simply uplifting while he looked about.

A whimper and perhaps most pointedly the slamming of the door marking the guard incident from the present woke the good Doctor to certain realities. He was surrounded by the truly ill, those made sickly by their enslavement to their fears. He was ringed round by patients who were _truly_ deserving of the title mentally ill. A few blinks set malice to its proper poise of sit and stay and thus reposed he found it easier to recall faces and names. Some of this gathering (eight all told, eight painfully familiar faces) were his own patients, ex-patients he supposed. And by the startled… no the shocked recognition they hadn’t known of his present enlightenment.

Regardless of whom they were… But that thought was derailed be revelation. Painfully bright lucidity. The smallest in this room was a shivering little thing, and though her fear caught his eye and made it linger the truth of her turned his stomach. A girl child who sported a mere fourteen years if that, though the hair color and frame were wrong –blessedly, horridly, he wasn’t quite sure- regardless the most familiar of the lot was her. Not his, she wasn’t one of his, but he’d encountered her type first and her fear simply bound them tighter together.

She made choices based upon pressures, seeking control over the chaotic flow of life; she took surety in deprivation for what was more tested than the self-inflicted. The mark of her spiral was the edge of cheekbones and the bruise hued abyss that was swallowing her eyes a bit more after each deprivation. Her hollowing had fallen like insubstantial tears, from eye to trace a path of void down her flesh, making bones strain against skin and motions grotesque despite the humble best of her bland suicide smock.

And while he could appreciate the effect of pathos and deformity (such a delicate kind of horror when the two were conjoined, mixing a grief and anxiety together, beautifully so), he had to acknowledge a bit of sour to the lot. Tragedy tipped balance, for the effect she showed for all her suffering was unwitting, unwilling, therefore it lost much of its power.

But in a way what power was taken away from her was granted to others. Fear had driven her to compulsion and trapped her in this state of living decay; she served as a moral compass, a breathing sign post of “almost too far” that warded others. But her ignorance of her own state, even of her own fate should things not be turned about was criminal.

Thus she was like the many others, the so many others beyond and within these walls. A victim of unspoken taboo, a person simply being herded about by the pressures of unrealized terrors she didn’t quite understand and because she did not understanding she could make no stand, simply strive and fail.

Her blue eyes locked with his, those flat pitted things near glassy per whatever chemicals they had running rampant in her system. He shivers had abated, but still the echo of elevated adrenalin and recalled shivers had made his gaze lock on her. He couldn’t look away if he wanted. Thus he was watched as he watched her, and the silly child had a base understanding of the world at least enough of one to be unsettled by his regard. She horribly misconstrued the intent behind his staring, his tracing her angles with his eyes, and he’d have elaborated to put such foolishness to rest if he could.

Alas, the gag. He couldn’t, thus didn’t.

Beyond their little drama the doctor (an Anderson, so proclaimed his name badge, an oblivious twit as he hadn’t gotten over the horror of the Scarecrow in his little civilian session) was calming the lot with lies. Assuring one and all that this was a sad accident that wouldn’t happen again (the whites about his eyes replaced sad with other, stronger words to which Crane speculated about silently) but still the young man tried to project some sort of calm. And to those about him, unaware of the fears that drove _them_ such bleating was a passable balm.

“Ms. Kannis…”

He simply met her eyes, watched and savored how it was such a struggle for the girl to wrench her head away thus breaking off their stare off prematurely.

The profile, her profile, was quite enlightening. That and a slip of the smock as she turned and shifted a barely discernible squirm to the whole. The hot red lines and bruising there of a hand shaped variety peaked his interest. The discoloration was sizable, but her throat was –to be redundant- a thin apparatus that would make any novice student of the trachea squeal with glee about how easy it was to see things with. Still the wounds fit her hands, and that suspicion gave motive for the thin thread of red and peeling about her wrists which were a common side product of restraints and dry skin and friction.

“He’s not going to talk to you; he’s not… supposed to be here.” Dr. Anderson soothed.

Thus spoke this so called shepherd, this guild to better living and stable sanity to his flock.

“He won’t talk to anyone.” A laugh, part scorn part to sooth. “He won’t even move. If he does, well I’ll get the guards.”

That assurance, well the response was varied and one deluded soul said something about fairy lights indicating he wasn’t quite up to participating this week never mind he was here to participate.

Idiocy, really, Strange was more than strange, they might as well prep another cell for a fresh occupant the way things were panning out.

Though hardly his facility anymore the neglect rankled. Thus he huffed soundlessly and settled frame against plane and listened to the agony his spine set up for having a chance to exercise posture against unpadded cement.

“It won’t happen again… he won’t… be here again?” Her voice, quiver and all, was quite melodic. A starving song bird, such was his Ms. Kannis. His youngest, and perhaps most delicate of patients. As she was reassured, more of the same and accepted so cautiously besides Crane contemplated a patient plan even as he closed his eyes to better mime sleep.

How would she scream? Would it be as pretty as she spoke? Would she scream louder when he ripped the veil and down from her frame, forcing her to see that which bound her? Or would the realization of how her binds were the guild that led her to death and a death of a truly torturous kind be louder still?

Thus Scarecrow anticipated and Crane planned, and both smiled, meeting her gaze only once more then settled in to fake slumber and labor in exquisite discomfort to better hear how the lives of his other patients had unraveled since his beastly confinement.


	8. Procedure

Quiver 

Chapter 8

Procedure

She had a desk, he noted first thing upon entering. It was some cheap brick-a-brack thing that must have come out of her budget if the quality was of any tell and if it _hadn’t_ come out of her budget… Well Strange was barking mad.

Any of the more athletic of his co-habitants could have broken it with a blow.

The pieces could be compiled, used for murder or mayham…

Or escape.

To that dark bird of promise he smiled and nodded to her half slurred “Mornin’ Jon”

She’d had no help, thus was the tale told by the stain and scent of sweat.  Been up early too if the rings about her eyes meant anything and perhaps worked a bit too hard. Her hair and the tight bun she’d made atop her head with it was coming undone about the edges.

He sat with her yawn and waved hand to serve as his invitation. Still, as he was sat, for though she might be a bit lax in attentions the guards dared not be, not with someone so new, so innocent, so he acknowledged their scrutiny by ignoring it. Set his regard to the world about, he catalogued what could be used, should be there, wasn’t, and did so soundlessly. A quick survey found the lot more or less complete if a bit bare. Book shelf with prescribed psychology texts kept her desk company. The lot was made nearly homey for the dark brown wood went wonderfully with the somber hued texts. Her touch, the only one thus far, was that contraband spot of color. The vase from before, blue and bright perched upon a half full bookshelf, halfway in the middle shelf to be exact, centered so that its isolation was almost advertised.

The contrast and its insinuations kept him company as the guards were wished a good afternoon and trooped out. Then it was her and him, the altered room that had been a cell to… well someone. He’d asked Jervis and gotten nothing save nonsense for a response. Still… considering the source that wasn’t too much a surprise and had gone some ways to enliven their chess match the day before.

The chairs he noted were the same as before and perhaps that explained the unmarked boxes in a corner he’d been puzzling over.

His captors had kept the straight jacket this time; he considered the lot an improvement for her side of things, and perhaps an end of her flippancy of before. He supposed someone had reviewed the tapes of their previous interactions, and whatever pressures that had been applied after had left a mark. She was a bit different from the bubby thing from the last session.

Her loss, and perhaps his, not that this changed his plans, simply altered how he’d execute them.

“You seem weary, child, I hope the requisite labors of this place aren’t too much for you?”

She smiled, showing teeth and spirit despite their slight flagging. “It’s been a day, Jonathan, quite a day, but aren’t the best ones those you put your all into?”

“I suppose that depends on the outcome of said day.” His answering smile was more grimace really, practiced but never perfected and had something of pain to it. An easy enough feat really, simply thinks upon the varied discomforts of the moment.

She laughed a sweet twinkling of sound that made him ache for laughter’s antithesis. Luckily there were screams aplenty and the walls weren’t sound proofed like those in solitary.

It all came down to waiting then.

Notebook set flat before her, curiously she placed it so he could read it if he stained, or perhaps scooted his chair. Not wanting to take the effort (or the chance, the chair was damnably fragile) he was able to see she noted something down and had to guess at what it was.

“Goal oriented are we?”

“It has its benefits, though the singular is more appropriate considering I’ve seen little proof of your own vocational orientations.”

“Should I move it up a little?”

She’d have to strain to write, still he hummed, and she took that as invitation to do the unspeakable. Show a patient her notes. Despite himself he tipped his head so his glasses slid a bit forward and were set just right for reading. He had one bully in Arleen to thank he supposed, the hook to his poorly set nose was just right. His glasses caught upon scar like swell more often than not and were prone to staying in if not a perfect place close enough to perfection that he didn’t quite mind it even when it ached in the cold.

 _Curious_ , thus was the first word, _prying, petty, proud_.

“The first breaks the trend.”

“It wasn’t intentional; I was just feeling a bit whimsical.” She shrugged.

“You do understand this breaks how many policies?” Crane murmured, raising one rust hued eyebrow.

_Professionale_

“A misspell that.”

Her smile, telling him it was all intentional, then she added the last.

“Perhaps.”

And she was laughing, a bit huskier than the last, but perhaps her posture about the desk was altering her humor subliminally.

“Well we aren’t going to waste your time and mine doing the usual, so I’m improvising.”

To that, said so candidly, as if it were the simplest of truths, he raised both eyebrows, felt as if something vital under him had been jarred loose. “Not going to do the usual?” He parroted, the silence, hers and that at of the back of his head compiled to nearly be complete. A rarity, normally _he_ had plenty to say during these little stints of rehabilitation and the conjoined quiet was unexpected and therefore somewhat disturbing for its spontaneous slant.

“You know, who you are, your name, age, sex, sexual activities. No disrespect to Freud and all but while that sort of thing _is_ important it’s not everything.”

His face went still, then in stages folded into a tell nothing composure wringing out inflections until all that was left to him was a monotone.

“And what does this mean, for you and I, these sessions?”

“Well I’m unconventional sort of soul speaking to a man possessed of... an extreme personality.”

He considered her, her efforts and the marks of them, this time with something not quite malice on his mind.

“You don’t say crazy. All the others, staff and perhaps the world, would say crazy.”

“Well you’re extreme and I’m an unconventional type of gal, it works for us both.”

“Perhaps it does.” Crane noted. “Perhaps it can.” Flicking his gaze to the desk and it’s sole occupant, a folder unopened and ripe with papers he considered it than her. “And those are?”

“Standard stuff. Assessments, tests, and junk, so just pick and choose and we’ll leave them in the progress segments. I figure, whenever you want, whatever you want, I’ll see if I have it and we’ll whip them out on slow rainy days.”

“And for not so rainy days?”

Because the sun he’d spied from window slits on the walk to her office had been high and hot though not as hot as he was used too.

“We talk, if you want to, and if you don’t, we don’t.” Then smirking, because though blonde Harleen wasn’t saddled with the joys of stupidity. “But you don’t leave and I get to hum if you get too quiet. Because you like that don’t you, my humming?”

And so his state, and the jacket, was explained. Despite himself Crane was smiling and leaning against the chair as much as he felt its fragility would allow.

“Such seeming bravery.”

“So, it’s fear then?” She took notebook and pen in hand.

“What else is there?”

“It’s a good place to start.” Harleen hummed, uncapping pen and setting to paper. “Should I call you professor, then? Considering?”

“Considering….” His smile failing, fled, fallen, he stared at her unblinking, waited as she waited on him despite him being bound. “Considering everything… no, Jonathan will do, for now. It’s a curious country, fear, without binds or bounds of territory, present omniscient yet hardly benign. Godlike, yet not-”

And as he spoke she wrote, the nostalgia it summoned was more bitter than sweet.


	9. Chapter 9

They went two days, two session, of him lecturing, her taking notes. The nostalgia of it all drove away his natural reticence to talking, lured him into habits of older days and previous abodes. Though he was not allowed behind the desk and there was a straightjacket to consider it was a power allusion… perhaps better to be called a delusion that she allowed him.

Seeming power, seeming familiarity.

They sipped water from plastic cups, a mismatched pair, and another piece of counter band. The water was not from a pitcher as it might have been had he been the one breaking the rules, but their drinks were purloined from plastic bottles she kept stashed behind her desk. One per leg and away from the door so not even the guards were likely to see anything when they dragged him in and out. Courtesy of a straw (a vibrant, _searing_ green never found in nature or what little corner of the artifice he’d dabbled in) and flexibility most didn’t anticipate he was able to keep his drink perched upon his knees and drink if not sitting up straight close enough.

He’d not crowd so close, and as one professional to another he’d not or risk the papers on her desk with spillage. On that they agreed though she in her kindness would have written her notes after each session had he pressed or even expressed something beyond a complaint or two about the jacket.

She was so horribly softhearted.

“Have you any questions child?”

“How long were you a teacher?”

A tangent, a curious one, to that he raised his eyebrow. She bristled a bit, but did not lash out with some adolescent explosion that he half expected. After all her cheer was a mask, he’d seen hinting’s of the insecurities under it, and was gifted with a viewing. A careless motion set the soft tipped pen to spinning, capped, no dangers to page there, still it spun about and he recalled whimsical things, wind vanes driven through cycle’s at winds behest in the distance, or in miniature upon a child’s hands.

The vibrancy of the last was contrasted by the pallor, the tight fisted grip that set flesh to whiteness and complimented the eyes and their wide bared white just so.

The horses had spooked, at his one and only parade. Obligation had set him to attend as the girl upon the wilted float had been one of his peers. Several years behind, but such was expected when the middle schools and elementary were one and the same. She’d been some little gem in child form called precious and delicate and… Well the jewel from Arleen had toppled from her high perch and he’d been distracted by the whirl and uproar the boiling mass of humanity had become at the drive of the mad.

He’d run, tossed down bit of whirling flippancy and run. The beasts were still tearing forward, not quite hemmed into a stop by the crush. Where they’d been would be safest, his thought only. They’d labeled it heroism that day, futile but proof his heart was in the right place when he’d tried and gotten and was all but failed by stupor and shock at the sight of that trampled body.

They’d found him cradling a hand, seeking a pulse that wasn’t, it’d flown from mouth to mouth; he’d been left mercifully nameless, refusing to tell them anything...

Tales aside he’d known better, _she’d_ known better, she’d set him a while evening with the crows upon his valorous return. It’d been Sunday after all; he’d not given prayers or set his mind to heavenly pursuit and had slacked besides.

So he’d been given his due.

It was barely audible, between her breathing and his, but the soft scrape of the pen in its cycle had something of claw on wood and a fell fluttering whispered at the back of his mind.

“Stop!”

She did, instinctually _knowing_. Slapping hand on pages, on pen, lunging at his command no less. Still he dared not watch. Eyes shut he shuddered, not conscious of the whimpers that slid past his sealed lips or that his teeth were grinding.

Something fell, something clattered, wet and cold raced down his leg and only the fact it was _cold_ kept his flashback from consuming him in full or twisting about wrong ways around and dropping him in some fouler memory.

“Jonathan,” hands gripped him, steadied him. Pushed and guided and held him hellishly still. Blue eyes flared open, the associations connected to those sensations were ineffable and none in a good sense. “Jonathan.” A small shake, her hands had a bit of a nip to them, she kept her nails long and painted he supposed.

He wondered if it was red. Wasn’t sure, just wondered.

Hands felt at his neck, hellishly hot and prickly, he winced as a memory stirred, unchained, it had him in it’s trawl then. A crow screamed in his ear and he flinched. Soon’d come the beak and the ripping nipping tearing…. He squinted what he’d shut, hearing it whisper

_Tear out your eyes they’ll tear out your eyes your eyes they’lltearout your.. eyes.._

“Medical… I’ll call…”

She was mumbling to herself, taking surety in assurances that she could scarcely articulate. Assured he was steady (for he wasn’t falling) Harleen took cautious small steps to her desk, reaching back watching forward, more than ready to lunge and brace him if he started to slump.

He lolled instead, a glint of blue about the base of his eyes mixed like a fey thing with the light.

Hand scraping, paper falling (fluttering) she had phone off it’s cradle and wheeled it closer, the keypad was close enough her trembling fingers might manage the right combination even if she was looking wrong way about. But she hesitated. If not s _traight_ he was at least no longer sliding, even as she noted that one leg shot out, sought stability in a fast drying puddle and he winced at the contact of wet. His eyes slid open a mite wider at grimaces’ end and his gaze roamed about. Mercy of mercies he was no longer crying sans tears.

“Professor Crane…”

To her call his eyes went wide, wildly wide and more white than blue, thus he considered her, the one thing he hadn’t looked at thus far. He looked at her, all pale and trembling, and he smiled.

“Professor Crane isn’t in right now, if you’d like to leave a message he’ll get back to you upon regular visiting hours…”

Her hands stabbed at keyboard, trying for medical, getting the guards by mistake. Still they came, and came quickly and she was left alone soon enough.


	10. Chapter 10

Quiver chapter 10

She was told to go home. No patient, no reason to say. She lingered anyway, using her office computer (a laptop, paper thin, and the real reason as to why the water wasn’t in the desk) to do what research she could.

Typing in the words the name, Jonathan Crane revealed scene after scene of the same nightmarish slant. Streets smothering in yellow tinged mists, lights once omnipresent benign baring warped illumination becoming seeming harbingers of an inferno. So the screams of fire and those fleeing the light to the dark seemed to reinforce, Blurred forms darted from tinted light to greater dark, then the video changed as some wild eyes woman lifted plank over her head, warding off mongrel and man with impunity. Mercifully soundless, was that atrocity, another was too dark, a black blur but the screams, shrill and gargling.

She turned the sound off and what played played on without her supervision. Harleen switched search engines. Five searches later and nothing. Nothing save one act, one evening, one city turned mad. Nothing of the man, of where he was, or what he’d been. They’d encapsulated her patient in a moment, proscribed him mad and shunted him into Arkham as fast as they could to console the shaken and bereft.

“Come on Professor, ya gotta’ve gone to college somewhere.”

A half hour, and nothing. Finally switching internet for traditional paper she flicked through her files, he wsa her first patient after all, so it wasn’t much of a search. Skimming over her notes, her predecessors, she tackled the official openings that no one bothered with. There had been some personal history, and all of it was blacked out. Someone had been through, excising not only his college and degree, but all his work history, his birthplace was condoned to death by sharpie only and A spared about the front.

A quick skim under the paper proved these to be copies, the original, must have been born under a computer’s printer. Though Arkham was old fashioned the facility wasn’t _that_ old fashioned, and because of that something like the easy route was lost to her.   In Strange’s office she wagered her job that there was at least one copy of Cranes papers that were unmarked, but it wasn’t worth her job to get that information.

So she wouldn’t.

Snapping the folder shut, she slid the slender folds into the empty drawer, a flick of color caught her eye. What was minimized had maximized, youtube’d rolled on and the screams were still all quiet, motion and allure of a primal slant (because the colors had been bright, and it wasn’t sophisticated higher thought here, simply a sibling of “ooh, shiny”) made her look up.

Colors, facsimile of before had become actuality as red and orange rose, edges pixelating and wavering, each swirl of mist a yellow fracture to a billowing whole. Black smeared from the fires spire to meld into the black that was the edge of the image, to meld with the fleeing blocky figures about the illumination’s base.

Then, after a moment, a span of dark and a moment as a twirling load circle she was seeing something clearer. Too clear. A man, a dog, a lurid black and yellow curdling sky. The man picked up the dog…

She didn’t need to skim the comments to know what happened, she cut if off with a click on the red “x” and turned the computer off for good measure.

But not before the dog had been lifted, not before the man’s mouth had opened wide-

“Computer off and I’m not thinking about it!”

It was off and blackened and a quick fumble got it unplugged even. Still it didn’t stop her from finishing what she’d seen in her head. That awful eyes closed sort of seeing that was more real than actually seeing.,

“You know what.” She asked the silence, the water bottle she snapped up (his) “Home sounds good, really good.” Thus she assured the trash can as she tossed his water into it. “So, go him, don’t think about ‘et.” Speech came out slurred as she chugged her (hopefully) water, set it to join his (maybe) bottle. “That’s a good plan.”

Somewhere, some cell, someone laughed lustily and loud, and utterly without sanity. Harleen snapped up her supplies, purse and little things that would fit into it and were hers and said to hell with it all. She was going home.

It was right, she should.

Her feet carried her to medical instead.


End file.
